With the introduction of compact disc recorders (CD-Rs), compact disc re-writeable recorders (CD-RWs), digital video disc recorders (DVD-Rs), and digital video disc re-writeable recorders (DVD-RWs) into the consumer market, more and more individuals are customizing their own CDs and/or DVDs. Whether it be a compilation of their favorite songs, picture slide shows, or hard drive backups, the creation or burning of customized CDs and to some extent DVDs is becoming more and more commonplace even with traditionally non-technical consumers.
Typical data CDs require creation of one or more (frequently at least two) complete filesystems at a time, each containing filesystem data describing the layout of folders and files, as well as actual file data. When more than one filesystem is present, the filesystems are typically intermingled as a hybrid; that is, the filesystem data for each filesystem is separated according to the rules of the filesystem, but each filesystem typically refers to the same blocks on disk for the actual file data.
Known methods for constructing a customized CD, i.e., a CD wherein the hierarchy of the filesystem(s) is defined by the creator of the CD and is not limited to simply being a copy of existing files and directories, employ a two-step process. First, an image representing the entire disc and all filesystem(s) is created on a local hard drive, and then second, the image is burned to a CD. These methods present several drawbacks, however, with regard to time and disk space as a result of creating an image of the desired filesystem(s) prior to burning them on a CD.
For example, to burn a customized filesystem containing 4.6 GB of information, using known methods, an image of the entire filesystem is created on the user's hard drive. Accordingly, the entire filesystem including its 4.6 GB of information is copied from its source location to the image space on the hard drive. Not only can this process of creating the image take up to an hour to complete, but the image uses 4.6 GB of space on the user's hard drive resulting in over 9 GB of space being used if the original information is also stored on the hard drive.
Accordingly, one skilled in the art can readily appreciate the desirability in providing a method of creating customized filesystems that does not require the inefficiency of first creating an image of the filesystem on a root disk and then copying the filesystem to the desired media.